It has always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nonsense.

As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have an unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings.

The finest people, as people go, cannot help but betray a fair portion of fear and insecurity, even full-blown panic.

No one gives up on something until it turns on them, whether or not that thing is real or unreal.

Amnesia may well be the highest sacrament in the great gray ritual of existence.

The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world.

This, then, is the ultimate, that is only, consolation: simply that someone shares some of your own feelings and has made of these a work of art which you have the insight, sensitivity, and — like it or not — peculiar set of experiences to appreciate. Amazing thing to say, the consolation of horror in art is that it actually intensifies our panic, loudens it on the sounding-board of our horror-hollowed hearts, turns terror up full blast, all the while reaching for that perfect and deafening amplitude at which we may dance to the bizarre music of our own misery.